World: THREE TIMES ALMOST PRIME MINISTER

RICHARD AUSTEN BUTLER, a parliamentary pundit once observed, "always
looks as if he will be the next Prime Ministeruntil it seems the
throne may actually be vacant." Butler has been deputy to all three
postwar Tory Prime MinistersWinston Churchill, Anthony Eden and
Harold Macmillan and after the 1956 Suez debacle had every
expectation of succeeding Eden at 10 Downing Street. When the party
picked Macmillan instead, "Rab" Butler, though bitterly humiliated,
said bravely: "Well, it is something to have been almost Prime
Minister."